Languages Spoken

Background

Dr Thng was the only one out of the 8 students in his medical class to have been awarded the prestigious Singapore’s Public Service Commission (PSC) Local Merit Scholarship to study Medicine in the National University of Singapore (NUS). Following his graduation from NUS, Dr Thng was awarded with his 1st Health Manpower Development Programme (HMDP) fellowship in 1994 from the Ministry of Health (MOH) Singapore and subsequently obtained his fellowship at both the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Upon completing his Orthopaedic Surgery training, Dr Thng pursued his subspeciality in the spine. He was awarded his 2nd HMDP from MOH to spend 1 year to study spine surgery in the University of Calgary, and his 3rd HMDP for a 1-month fellowship in Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University in Boston, USA.

Dr Thng has been practising as an orthopaedic surgeon since 2001. He set up the spine service in Changi General Hospital (CGH). Based on hospital OTM records from 2003 – 2013, Dr Thng has performed over 3,000 operations and over 1,200 spine procedures, both open and minimally invasive. An internal audit for geriatric patients from June 2010 to June 2012 revealed that Dr Thng had performed 85 spine operations (for 70 – 91 years old) with outcome scores compatible with international standards.

Dr Thng has been invited to perform live demonstrations of spine surgical and operative skills in China, India, Vietnam and Malaysia. Some of the procedures demonstrated include minimally invasive spine surgery, cervical disc arthroplasty, posterior cervical and lumbar surgery, and anterior thoracolumbar surgery.

Dr Thng’s work has been acknowledged by his fellow surgeons both internationally and locally. Over the last 10 years, he has been invited to conduct faculty teaching on more than 50 occasions. He has also been nominated chairperson more than 10 times for both international and regional spine societies, orthopaedic and neurosurgical associations and universities.

Dr Thng was elected by fellow surgeons in the region to chairAOSpine East Asia from 2007 – 2010, an international community of spine surgeons advancing spine care research and development. He has also served as the incumbent chairman of AOSpine Asia Pacific since 2013. On top of this, Dr Thng was also appointed visiting consultant to the Guikang National People’s Hospital in Guikang China from 2008 – 2013.

Dr Thng served as a senior consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Changi General Hospital (CGH) and an adjunct associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was also the spine fellowship director in CGH, responsible for training spine fellows (2004 – 2013) from countries around the region, including China, India and Southeast Asia. Dr Thng has been actively involved in undergraduate and orthopaedic residency teaching, and was appointed as an examiner both in the MBBS examinations and the orthopaedic fellowship specialist exit examinations held conjointly with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In 2015, he was invited to Hong Kong University as an external examiner for these conjoint examinations. He also served as a visiting consultant at the Singapore Armed Forces from 2013 – 2015.

Research-wise, Dr Thng serves as associate editor of the Global Spine Journal. He also reviews scientific articles from the Singapore Medical Journal and the Annals of the Academy. He has also contributed a book chapter on Osteoporosis and Obesity in Spine Surgery.

For all his work and achievements, Dr Thng has received numerous awards. Internationally, he received the Best Educational Contribution in Asia Pacific award from AOSpine International in 2013. Other awards include the Singapore Health Quality Service (Gold) award in 2010, the CGH/EHA Quality convention award in 2011, the Singhealth Service quality (Star) award in 2012, and multiple quarterly best service awards from CGH.

Awards

Best Educational Contribution in Asia Pacific from AOSpine International